Bur­han Do­gançay

It is the traces of everyday life that make up the visual aesthetics in the work of Burhan Doğançay (1929 – 2013): building walls covered with graffiti, torn posters in subway stations and slogans in countless languages on the walls of a wide variety of cities. His stay in Israel in 1975 marked the beginning of his photographic documentation of the walls of this world. The result of this life project is 40,000 photographs from 114 countries and a unique archive. The photographs served as the basis for Doğançay's drawn and painted work, which depicts, crops, reworks and reinterprets walls around the world. The observation of walls, their appropriation and artistic transformation results in a paradox and at the same time a humanistic message: walls that were built to divide become carriers of a common language for humanity.

In 2021, several works by Burhan Doğançay were donated to the Kunst Museum Winterthur. Because the Museé d'art et d'histoire in Geneva was also able to accept a comprehensive group of works by the artist, both houses are now organizing an exhibition focused on their respective new acquisitions: while in Geneva the artist's works were already on view in autumn/winter 2023 , the Kunst Museum Winterthur will follow in the first half of 2024. Together, the two houses will publish a bilingual exhibition catalog that is intended to make the important Turkish artist known to a wider audience in this country and thus contribute to overcoming walls - or, in the Swiss case, ditches.